‘Maybe it’s her eyesight,’ said Mama. ‘Maybe she does need these glasses.’ She did not sound convinced.

‘Don’t make excuses for her. Your daughter has turned stupid.’

Farida felt stupid. She was no longer one of the clever pupils. She even made friends with the girls who didn’t care about school, the ones who sat next to her in the back row. She chatted during lessons, hummed tunes. When she was reprimanded, she laughed it off pretending not to care. Ten stinging swipes of the ruler from the Maths teacher had her licking and blowing her palms. The blackboard became a fuzzy, distant place, neither clear nor interesting

She could not see the expression on Sister Carlotta’s face, but something in the way she held herself made Farida pay attention. Sister Carlotta’s voice sounded strained and high-pitched. ‘I am going away, back to Rome. I have to. My mother … remember I told you she resembled Mrs Harris? She died last night.’

At the mention of Mrs Harris, most of the girls burst out laughing. Sister Carlotta’s face turned red. Even Farida could see the change in colour. ‘How dare you laugh!’ she screeched. Her eyes darted in seemingly opposite directions; they bulged as if she did not have any eyelids. ‘I tell you that my mother died and you laugh!’ She sounded like she was going to cry.

The laughter died down. Farida wanted Sister Carlotta to know that she hadn’t laughed like the other silly girls. She strained to see if Sister Carlotta was looking in her direction but could not be sure. It was time to ask permission to move to the front rows, to remind Sister Carlotta of her eyes – but today Farida felt shy, and today Sister Carlotta was too preoccupied to remember.

In the following weeks a substitute teacher who was very mindful of the seating rules came in, and Farida’s grades slipped in History and Literature too. She was now heading for the ultimate humiliation, repeating the grade. Her classmates would go forward and she would be held back. She would be surrounded by girls younger than her. Farida, already tall for her age, would be a giant among them. The glasses? No one spoke about them at home now. There were other urgent matters: how her older brother got into trouble with the police, her baby brother’s fever, a quarrel between her mother and the neighbour, the rise in the price of sugar, an uncle coming to visit. No one had time for Farida’s eyes.

In the middle of the night, in the pitch darkness without moon or stars, a thought entered Farida’s mind and made her cold with fear. What if her eyesight kept getting worse? What if she became completely blind? She would be groping in the dark – no school, no books, no cinema. Just voices and sounds.